Burn the Letters, Mr Holmes
by dontforget2live
Summary: 'Beauty and pain, he muses, steepling his fingers, are always connected, aren't they? That—that's the point of the matter. Everything captivating is dangerous, especially love, and especially Irene.' / Sherlock-centric drabble, based off 2x12 'the Diabolical Kind'. Discusses Sherlock/Moriarty and briefly Sherlock/Watson.


**A/N: SO I'VE ACTUALLY WRITTEN TWO FANFICTIONS (AND POSTED THEM) IN 3 DAYS? Whoa. Must be a new record or something for me.**

**Anywoo, I watched last night's episode of _Elementary _when I woke up today and I literally had to write about this. I must say that I'm a bit wary of them re-introducing Moriarty into the show because Elementary has always been more about focusing on solving cases and the like vs. drama and love and stuff like that. But I did like how the episode happened.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Elementary or any of the plots, characters, and actors affiliated with it. I'm also not in any way affiliated with CBS or any other broadcasting company that shows it.**

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Sherlock Holmes sits by the fire, the packet of letters beside him. There's something about the fire that he cannot help but compare to Moriarty: the beauty of the flames, golden yellow and tangerine, waving in the fireplace. The danger of them, how one touch could burn you or disfigure you forever, or how one errant spark could burn up everything you've ever known.

_Beauty and pain_, he muses, steepling his fingers, _are always connected, aren't they? _That_—that's the point of the matter. Everything captivating is dangerous, especially love, and especially Irene._

Sometimes he still refers to her as Irene, not as Moriarty. Maybe it's habit, maybe it's something else—maybe he can't separate the abstract idea of the brilliant, beautiful, captivating Irene from the harsh reality of the sadistic, evil Moriarty. But they are one in the same, the idea of Irene and real Moriarty, two things completely different but unable to fully disconnect from one another. And in essence there really _is_ no Irene; for she was only a character, no more and no less.

But sometimes Sherlock still sees Irene through the cracks of Moriarty, and one such instance was that night, when the bloody, tired Moriarty was vulnerable and confessed more openly than she ever had.

_Bah_. Love is blind. The most likely explanation was that it was merely a hallucination, that he'd imagined the whole thing, imagined his Irene because he _wanted_ to. Because Sherlock didn't love Moriarty—only Irene—and Moriarty only ever hurt him, for seeing Irene and realizing the entire façade of her hurt even more than thinking she was dead in the first place.

Watson comes into the lounge and tells him that she's just got off the phone with the Captain, and that apparently _Moriarty _had lost a lot of blood but would most likely be fine. Sherlock doesn't respond, just continues to stare into the fire.

Watson asks him if he's okay, and he tells her he's fine, thanks. She pauses for a moment, deliberating, and although it seems she's detected the lie in his words she lets it go, leaving him alone with a gentle touch on his shoulder.

Watson and Moriarty were another pair easily juxtaposed: Watson was kind, caring, open. Moriarty was skilled at both killing people and hiding emotions. Yin and yang, he supposed. Both were women who were determined and strong, but besides that, were polar opposites. But Watson and Irene… that is a different case altogether. They were more similar that he'd like to think. And in some twisted, possibly masochistic way, maybe that's what Sherlock likes about Watson so much.

Sherlock wants to burn the letters. But he can't, for burning the letters means burning the last vestiges of Irene, and he can't do that yet. So instead he takes the letters up to the roof and places them in their original spot in the beehive. He can't burn the letters now, but he will someday.

Just not today.

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**Just a little bit of Sherlock musing. It's interesting to get inside his headspace, to be honest.**

**Oh! Shameless plug time: I have a tumblr (url is abundantmetaphoricalresonances) where I usually post my fics first. I generally spend most of my time there, so you can follow me if you want and/or send me an ask or something.**

**Thanks for reading and, you know, feel free to leave a review ;)**

**~Alex (aka dontforget2live) x**


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